CTO Hire SEM Viral 
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 22, 2008
I break the answer to that question down into three engines: Viral - this is the business model identified in the presentation as "Get Users." Here, the key metrics are Acquisition and Referral, combined into the now-famous viral coefficient. If the coefficient is > 1.0 , you generally have a viral hit on your hands.
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 15, 2008
But in my experience this is not useful most of the time. That green button was part of a customer flow, a series of actions you want customers to complete for some business reason. If its part of a viral loop, its probably trying to get them to invite more friends (on average).
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Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 18, 2008
On Facebook, viral distribution has proved decisive. Those companies who have learned to build apps that optimize the viral loop dominate in every category where they compete. If you sell an online service that solves a defined problem, you can compete in SEO or SEM. There are other models, in other distribution channels.
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 12, 2008
vs. sustainable: Compare this to the renewable strategies, like viral marketing, SEO, widgets, and ads, which can scale into 10s of millions of users but are primarily centered around tough, non-user centric work. Problem is, you inevitably become yesterday’s old news. How to listen to customers, and not just the loud.
Startup Lessons Learned
SEPTEMBER 29, 2008
Revenue is always my preferred measure, but you can use anything that is important to your business: retention, activation, viral invites, or even customer satisfaction in the form of something like net promoter score. If an optimization has an effect at the micro level that doesnt translate into the macro level - who cares?
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